Please don't say that the one-click experience was "invented" by Jeff Bezos - it completely trivializes the entire creative process. It reduces those who are truly innovative to the status of mere dilettantes.

ABC was extremely annoying with the ads for the show - it seemed like every other commercial was something to with the season opener. Like I hadn't seen it the first two hundred times. When I see that kind of "in your face" approach, I usually turn and walk away. And I did.

If you want to talk about trivializing the creative process, how about the word "content". Whoever came up with that one, a description of culture in terms of its relationship to its delivery mechanism that treats it as a sort of homogeneous goo, pulled off perhaps the most dramatic trivialization of the creative process in contemporary history.

I have an amazon account, they have all my details online, and so forth.

But when I buy something through what they claim as "1 click", it sure seems like more than one to me.

Is this some new definition of "1", or am I missing something obvious here? It takes several clicks just to get to the "you are about to be charged" screen. And that's assuming I have already logged in, which I usually haven't when I just want to go there and buy a CD or something.

Frankly, this seems like a fairly nonobvious "invention" to me - in that I can't understand why anyone would ever want to do this. At the very least I'd want one click to put each item in the shopping cart or whatever, and one click to confirm the order with information like the calculated shipping cost, delivery time, whether any items are backordered, etc.

let us say a car manufacturer invents a wireless device that unlocked your car when you are within a certain range automatically.
let us also say they patented this

technically, there are devices that sort of do this, except you have to press a button. Suddenly every car manufacturer realizes this is a much better method of opening doors and they decide to implement the same design in their cars.

The original car manufacturer has spend time and money conducting usability studies, adding this, removing that in an effort to give their customers greater satisfaction.

suddenly they see every car company has copied their design and have piggy-backed on the research they spent money on, on the grounds that there is already prior art (the button keys) and the idea is obvious anyway.

Don't the inventors of the wireless door have the right stop and say "hey you guys didn't invent this, there was something similar but it's not the same thing, we spent money perfecting the things that in hindsight seem startlingly obvious, don't steal our work"?

Your analogy really isn't that far off, however, I think it all comes down to the invention in question.

In your example, I think the inventive step is how your car figures out how you're close to it, but does so in a way that is effective with one half of the system required to be low power (the keyfob), and is accurate enough that it doesn't unlock while you're not present, as well as determining that you want it to be unlocked, and you're just not walking around with your keys inside your house (which could trigger it, based on how close you are). A workable, comprehensive, and accurate solution to this could be fairly non-trival.

On the other hand, you're comparing it to the 1-click patent. Now, I think that the one-click is an excellent example of patenting it based on 'while no one has done it before, so it must be inventive'. Remember, when this patent was filed, e-commerce was still relatively new. Businesses were still trying to convince everyone that it was safe to use the internet to buy things. As such, the shopping cart analogues were the most popular.

As part of a shopping cart system, assuming they have some sort of login (which was popular then, and is still quite popular even now), they will have information about the customer. If that customer has purchased from you before, they could even have all of the financial information necessary to place an order. At the time, however, most businesses didn't keep full credit card information on file after a transaction had completed, if for no other reason to avoid potential liability if that information was compromised. But they COULD have easily done so (as the customer had to enter it the previous time they placed an order).

So Amazon's 'inventive' step was to say, hey, we should ask the customer if we can save this information, and then use it next time they order so we don't have to ask again. So their inventive step was storing the financial and address information in a database, and looking it up later. While it hadn't been done before, there wasn't a technical reason, but a social reason. To many technologists, the inventive step seems to be very weak, and shouldn't have passed the muster of 'non-obvious'.

So, your analogy isn't really flawed. Just your choice of the invention is a bit stronger. A slightly closer analogy would be basing opening your door by passing an RFID-enabled keyfob over a sensor which is part of the doorframe. Its range would be only a few inches from the door. Now, that would be closer to the 1-click, as I have such a system where I work where the RFID is embedded in my work ID. As RFID enabled door locks already exist, I would hope it would be difficult to get a patent on an RFID enabled car door lock.

In your example, I think the inventive step is how your car figures out how you're close to it, but does so in a way that is effective with one half of the system required to be low power (the keyfob), and is accurate enough that it doesn't unlock while you're not present, as well as determining that you want it to be unlocked, and you're just not walking around with your keys inside your house (which could trigger it, based on how close you are). A workable, comprehensive, and accurate solution to this cou

I think you are describing method claims when you refer to "the entire concept". Unfortunately, the PTO must folow the rules set forth by congress and their interpretation by the court system. It is true that mistakes are made and art is missed resulting in otherwise invalid patents. However most people around here fail to realize that the office itself is bound by law to give equal weight to both method and apparatus claims.

let us say a car manufacturer invents a wireless device that unlocked your car when you are within a certain range automatically. let us also say they patented this

Actually, devices such as this already exist. I don't know if they are patented. I worked with a guy once (2 years ago) and he gave me a lift home. From work, he just walked up to his car and got in and pressed a button and the engine started. He had a small widget hanging around his neck and the car unlocked the doors and activated the ignition

The Corvette, among others, has had this system in place since the late 80s. It is an option. Simply consists of a low power RF transmitter keyfob that changes the electronics locks to the unlock state when in range.
Nifty, but not the smartest thing. Just because I'm within 15 feet of my door, doesn't mean I want my front door unlocked.

Don't the inventors of the wireless door have the right stop and say "hey you guys didn't invent this, there was something similar but it's not the same thing, we spent money perfecting the things that in hindsight seem startlingly obvious, don't steal our work"?

No. What they have the right to do is milk the hell out of their first-to-market advantage then use some of the proceeds to come up with the next new thing. If they fail to turn their invention into extra profits then either the invention wasn't all that great after all, or else they're a crappy company in which case no wonder they're having trouble. Competition is/meant/ to be hard.

In the meantime, other patent examiners have repeatedly smacked down 1-Click --- the latest (non-final) rejection was issued on Feb. 10th with Sandra Bullock's help."

I truly don't know what that sentence is supposed to mean. Is "smack down" a legal term?

Defense: Your Honor, the defense would like to smack down the prosecution's evidence.

Prosecution: Objection, Your Honor. The defense has not demonstrated it possesses the balls to smack us down. We'd also like to put on the record that we've had intercourse with the defense's wife.

Judge: Objection sustained. It has been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the court that the defense has no balls. We also note that the prosecution could not have had intercourse with the defense's wife, for lack of penis.

Well, I suppose it is better than putting them in a figure four leglock. I heard that is REALLY painful and the lawyers tend to wet themselves which makes for a messy cleanup for the janitor not to mention the smell in the court room.

Nine years ago the USPTO chief said "Don't whine about prior art, submit evidence of it" regarding the 1-Click patent.

Three+ years ago, such evidence was submitted.

Today: Amazon still retains the patent, while the promised re-exam has yet to occur.

So yes, if you only focus on one element of the entire summary I can understand why you might think that its someone other than you who is being a "dipshit".

the latest (non-final) rejection was issued on Feb. 10th with Sandra Bullock's help.

So, the promised re-exam is occurring. What do people think happens during a reexamination? A big courtroom trial? No... Reexaminations are ex parte - the patent owner vs. the USPTO examiner, same as the original examination. And they result in things such as non-final rejections.

I believe you miss the point. If the re-exam happens to take as long as the patent has left to live, and this sure seems like it could, how does the re-exam help? If the system for fixing things happen to be unable to fix things before they are no longer relevant, then there *isn't* a system for actually fixing anything.

... is that some of the prior art (the open account) can be shown to exist in Babylonian cuneiform. Does the USPTO search back to Babylonian cuneiform for evidence of prior art in business practices?

The open account is where the customer walks into the store, is recognized by the owner or clerk, requests some goods, says "put it on my account", and receives the goods. The owner or clerk updates the account. In the one click patent the recognition is by a cookie.

Actually, a final rejection was made on the re-exam case, but Amazon filed an RCE (request for continued examination). Essentially, as long as Amazon is willing to (a) pay the fee and (b) make some sort of submission that merits further examination (e.g., amending the claims or presenting another prior art reference they want considered), they can keep the re-exam going until the cows come home. The next action after an RCE is usually non-final - it's a bit like starting the examination process over again.

On a side note, after the RCE and before the subsequent non-final Office action, Amazon submitted an IDS (information disclosure statement, on which they list further references they wish to have considered) that was 36 pages long. That's not a 36-page reference - the list of references itself took 36 pages.

Ironically, Stephen Levy - whose 1995 article The End of Money [newsweek.com] is now being used by USPTO examiners to reject 1-Click patent claims as obvious - reported back in 2000's The Great Amazon Patent Debate [newsweek.com] about the conversation he sat in on in which Jeff Bezos just wouldn't hear that 1-Click was obvious. Responding to Tim O'Reilly's charge that "trying to enforce a patent claim on something as obvious as 1-Click is downright selfish," Bezos countered: "When we applied for the patent, 1-Click wasn't obvious...When we introduced it, people were surprised...They called it innovative."

The synopsis does not reflect peters talent.
Calling peter a out of work actor is like calling Ronald Reagan a to 2 bit B movie actor. Peter is much more, he is in work with our countries major TV network, He is smart and a bit of a geek, who else be an actor/director/producer and go after IT patient abuses for a hobby. Go for it peter.

Sorry if it came across that way; certainly wasn't the intent. Indeed, Peter's efforts here even left legal professionals impressed [patentbaristas.com]: "It turns out that New Zealander Peter Calveley is one of the actors who provided the motions for computer-generated elves and orcs in Two Towers. He also has been laid up of late due to an accident (I can relate). He has now put his free time to use taking on a David and Goliath effort against Amazon...I have to admit, I was quite intrigued by the whole affair given that a Request for Re-Exam is not something average citizens take on in their spare time. After some correspondence, we spoke by telephone briefly -- since I was unwilling to write about his efforts if this was all a scam. I found that Calveley is extremely bright and has his own inventions and understands computer patents and procedures quite well. He has the time and will to do this even if it won't bring him a direct benefit."

This endless wrangling about prior art should be rendered moot by the Bilski Decision [groklaw.net] anyhow - I would hope. The Bilski Decision puts the whole concept of software patents into question.

Not necessarily. Bilski wasn't explicitly software - he was managing hedge funds - and the decision cited State Street... favorably. The only real difference between State Street and Bilski was that State had means-plus-function claims. And in light of Bilski, PTO Examiners are now looking for a few "magic words" in claims that signify they're tied to a specific computing machine.

Anyways, since Bilski's going up before SCOTUS, this is all irrelevant. No one knows what it really means and won't for another

When Palm/3Com were losing the Graffiti fight to Xerox, I gave them a published article from a IEEE journal on the "SCANC" system that was almost identical to both Graffiti and the Xerox patent and which should absolutely have been accepted as prior art.

Nope.

The system is broken, and Mr. Dickson and everybody else involved needs to be cashiered at once.